Says who? Let's ignore the genre and our experience with these sorts of mangas and look at the situation from a more detached perspective - a young girl lures another young girl with money and slowly gets her used to escalating sexual acts, starting with skinship that the latter initially finds uncomfortable and eventually moving to outright molestation - and this is with around 3 months of time left in their deal. If you ignore things outside the work and look at it critically, it's really disturbing, or at least that's the way it seems to me.
Hindsight (which will come with time) and prior experience with the genre aside, "you are really into it, even if you refuse to acknowledge it" sounds like something a rapist would say. In fact, if the art style was different and the same things were portrayed in a different perspective, it'd totally be seen that way. I strongly ask you to shelf your gut reaction and take a bit of time to think it through, even if you reach the same conclusions at the end.
I am probably speaking to a wall, but it's really frustrating to non-stop hear the same copy and paste reactions.
I agree insofar as we can't know Marika's "genuine" sexuality (if you will), and I totally agree that the framing of the situation does influence its interpretation and gut reaction.
That's what fiction is for. It's not real, so we can have thought experiments and unrealistically cutesy things that would normally be at least morally dubious or would never happen that way. I mean, isn't that basically all that porn is? Even so, I think our understanding of the characters' motivations and their agency is the more important factor that allows us to not be upset by it. (edited to highlight the most important sentence here)
Take this example from the first chapter of Warikan. Two charcters of which we know that they'll end up at least somewhat pursuing a lesbian relationship, yet this first encounter feels radically different from what Arioto does.
Both series have amazing art, but where Arioto is a cute, super horny comedy, Warikan is a beautifully wretched, super horny drama series. The comparison, especially considering that scene, is rather apt: Both Kaburagi (Aya) in Warikan as well as Marika in Arioto originally enter the situation willingly, thinking they know what they're getting into.
Granted, Kaburagi wants a lover while Marika is initially motivated by money, yet Kaburagi is the one to remove herself from the situation because she's just so taken aback. Marika's reaction is always "meh, this isn't so bad, totally worth it for the pay". She can stop at any time, yet she keeps coming back for more. That should be hint enough that Fuwa isn't the only one here that's slightly messed up ;)
Edit: Oh yeah, forgot to make the second point of that tangent, picking up on characters' motivations again: We know Fuwa's (and Marika's) motivation in Arioto, because she's very much upfront about it. She's manipulative, but she literally tells Marika that she's trying to manipulate her. We did not (fully) know and understand Sei's motivation in Warikan, thus being much more critical of the latter's interaction. Not that knowing Sei's motivation would have changed all that much in this case, she was being really toxic and not one bit playful there.
last edited at Jun 21, 2021 9:42AM
